Topic: Damage vs different types of targets

[John Duffield]

Hi,

I have been thinking a bit lately about damage vs different targets from different weapons and some way to represent the fact that small arms cannot hurt things like combat tanks without creating a disparity with exploding armour values.

Anyway, I haven't played HARP SF much yet but have read the rules and purused the forums and I have played many other SF games.

I came up with the concept of penetration which works quite simply.

A weapon has a certain level of penetration (it's ability to actaully cause damage against armoured - so something firing HEAP rounds fairs better the HE or Fletchette)

Armour has a penetration threshold (the minimum penetration a weapon must do to be able apply damage).

For things like kinetic or abaltive arnour they have different thresholds (for different attack sources).

That is it - no complex calculations or other impinging on the flow of the game, just a simple threhold check.

So you can take you .45 and turn that car into swiss cheese but against a tank rocks would have just as much effect.

As an addendum (okay - now the maths - but a very little bit) - you could have a set of thresholds so x2 pen = x2 damage etc so that when a startship weapon hits a car it is toast, but acts normally vs other starships.

Thoughts?

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

The early rules for personal combat attempted the same sort of thing, reckoning that futuristic armor protected as designed against futuristic weapons but archaic armor and natural hide gave only limited protection (as opposed to none). The alpha playtesters thought it was too much hassle so instead we went for higher DBs and reduced maneuver penalties on futuristic armor.

In terms of having certain types of armor being impervious to certain forms of attack, players will immediately want to be wearing personal armor made out of that material, which just makes for problems and complications in person-vs-person combat. (We already make the added realism of personal ablative and kinetic armor changing the critical tables an optional rule.)

I can foresee this turning into a large matrix of weapons versus personal armor/hull/armor material/types. I'm currently unconvinced that this is easier than a few subtractions/additions for the boundary cases of personnel vs vehicles and vehicles vs personnel weapons.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[John Duffield]

That's fair enough.  I can always extend my rules (just thought it was interesting) 

What I was envisioning was a system of each weapon  having a pen value and armour having some form of pen threshold.  To be thruthful I am still playing with the idea anyway 

Thanks

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

When you've got something that is relatively complete, do submit it as an article for The Guild Companion.

Best wishes,
Nicholas